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The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja upheld a two-Year-Jail-term sentence of Ndifon Cyril for sexual harassment.
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The former Dean faced cases of sexual harassment spanning a decade of his time at the university.
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Forensic investigations revealed that he solicited sex and explicit content from female students.
This ruling by the appellate court, which was delivered on September 18, was put out by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) in a press statement.
Sexual Harassment: Court of Appeal affirms Prof. Cyril Ndifon’s two-year jail term for soliciting pornographic, indecent and obscene photographs from a female student at the University of Calabar, while ordering a fresh trial on the second count. pic.twitter.com/7Zb9dQkFVj
— ICPC Nigeria (@icpcnigeria) September 25, 2026
The Court of Appeal upheld the two-year imprisonment ruling passed against the former UNICAL dean by the Federal High Court, Abuja, in 2025. The court had obtained hard evidence to prove that Ndifon demanded pornographic, indecent and obscene content from a female student through electronic communication.
Sexual harassment scandals had been hanging around Ndifon’s neck since 2015. Then, he was suspended by the university following rape accusations that involved a female law student. His reinstatement a year later was overturned by a National Industrial Court decision. He was fully reinstated in 2022.
These scandals resurfaced in 2023 when female law students at the university staged a demonstration against the professor, holding placards that detailed his harassment of them. The placards read: “Enough of the Law School List Manipulation,” “Prof Ndifon must leave for the sake of our sanity,” and “Law girls are not bonanzas,” among other inscriptions. He was suspended again shortly after.
In 2024, while the case was in court, ICPC’s forensic investigation discovered illicit videos, texts and nude photographs of a female diploma student on Ndifon’s phones. In 2025, Justice James Omotosho of the FHC Abuja deemed the evidence against the former dean to be beyond reasonable doubt.
Count one claimed that Ndifon, between June and September 2023, used his position for self-gratification by demanding nude pictures and videos from a Year 2 Diploma female student on WhatsApp.
In the second count, the former dean was accused of requesting nude pictures from a 400-level female student of the Faculty of Law in exchange for making himself her project supervisor to guarantee her favourable grades.
In Count three, he was accused of demanding the photograph of a 16-year-old who was a prospective post-UTME student of the school, to see and consider her for admission into the Faculty of Law.
In count four, it was alleged that he made a female student send him indecent and obscene photographs of herself on WhatsApp between May and September 2023.
Omotosho ruled that the ICPC was able to prove counts one and two beyond a reasonable doubt. He then sentenced Ndifon to a two-year jail term on count one and five years on count two, to run concurrently.
Following the professor’s appeal, the court upheld his two-year jail term.
By Akinjide Adebowale
